Advertisements are omnipresent in our current society. Everywhere we see, whether it be magazines, newspapers, or even the internet, has some kind of advertisements. Because they are so closely tied to our lives, the influence that advertisements have on people is huge. Although advertisements do have some benefits, such as providing the public useful information and advices, their negative effects – alluring people to buy unhealthy products and manipulating the costumers – easily overweigh their benefits.
Advertisements frequently make people buy unhealthy or even harmful products by giving the public positive images of such products. In particular, the widespread advertisements played a huge role in the success of cigarette during the 20th century. “From the birth of the cigarette industry, advertising was instrumental in creating a mass market and apportioning shares among brands.” (Shaw) Furthermore, even after people became increasingly aware of the potential harm that smoking cigarettes can bring, advertisements still enlarged the market for cigarettes by implementing carefully devised consumer research. The companies’ constant advertisement moreover promoted “the continued social acceptability of smoking and encouraged the incorrect belief that the majority of people smoke.”(Shaw) The public, because it was constantly exposed to cigarette commercials, came to consider cigarette as “household items” that is to be consumed in our daily lives and thus took smoking as “socially acceptable”. As such, advertisements promote the public’s consummation of harmful products by making people falsely believe that those products “universal”.
Commercials can also be blamed for “manipulating” the consumers, for these commercials play a crucial role in forming an individual’s life-long shopping habits. Such influence of advertisements is especially big on teenagers who tend to get easily swayed by their environment. These teenagers, once they start buying the advertised brand of clothing or coffee, will continue to buy the same brand for their remaining lives. According to the studies conducted for Seventeen, “about 29 percent of adult women buy the brand of coffee they preferred as teenagers, and about 41 percent buy the same brand of mascara.”(Day) This statistics clearly show how advertisements are prone to manipulate the teenagers into buying specific products for their entire lives. Even those who claim to be uninfluenced by the advertisements are in fact vulnerable to ad’s attack, for the effects of advertisements work under human consciousness with “psychological hooks.”(Schrank) Thus, advertisements must be criticized for their “propaganda” in making people buy certain products by using unrecognizable persuasive techniques.
Despite such apparent disadvantages that ads bring, some people still promote the advertisements, saying that they give some valuable information to the public or promote altruistic behavior, such as donating blood after countering the Red Cross advertisement that encourages people to do so. (Red Cross) Some even claim that advertisements educate the public by informing them about “candidates running for office, and important issues such as the benefit of seatbelt use.” (Day) Nonetheless, how many percentages do such public campaign ads take up in this massive advertisement pool? Furthermore, a click on the Internet soon gives out the public all the information it needs – obviously including the candidates’ name and the importance of using seat belts. In fact, what we really need know not need to be informed using advertisements (Sesana), because we will look it up beforehand from other sources if it is that important. People’s claim that advertisement is necessary because it provides information is clearly invalid for these reasons.
Nowadays, people are so immerged in the ocean of advertisements that they often fail to recognize the schemes that these advertisements play. Although some advertisements clearly have positive values, such as delivering people essential information and persuading people to do altruistic acts, the majority of the advertisements floating in our society focuses in manipulating the public to buy certain products by persuading people under the conscious level. Thus, advertisement is more of a mere propaganda than something that fosters prosperity.
2011년 3월 20일 일요일
2011년 3월 13일 일요일
Education: Finland vs. Korea
This is a video clip on Finland's education system. When it comes to international Standarized testings, Finland scores one of the highest - along with South Korea. However, these two countries' educational systems differ greatly.
There is also an article posted on BBC that talks about Finland's education success.
By Tom Burridge BBC World News America, Helsinki |
Last year more than 100 foreign delegations and governments visited Helsinki, hoping to learn the secret of their schools' success.
In 2006, Finland's pupils scored the highest average results in science and reading in the whole of the developed world. In the OECD's exams for 15 year-olds, known as PISA, they also came second in maths, beaten only by teenagers in South Korea.
 | Education in South Korea  In South Korea, the school day is long and pupils have a much stricter study regime.  |
This isn't a one-off: in previous PISA tests Finland also came out top.
The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.
A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject. But the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.
Finland's Education Minister, Henna Virkkunen is proud of her country's record but her next goal is to target the brightest pupils.
''The Finnish system supports very much those pupils who have learning difficulties but we have to pay more attention also to those pupils who are very talented. Now we have started a pilot project about how to support those pupils who are very gifted in certain areas.''
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The BBC's Tom Burridge talks to Henna Virkkunen, the Minister of Education and Science in Finland.
According to the OECD, Finnish children spend the fewest number of hours in the classroom in the developed world.
This reflects another important theme of Finnish education.
 Children walk around in their socks at Torpparinmäki Comprehensive |
Primary and secondary schooling is combined, so the pupils don't have to change schools at age 13. They avoid a potentially disruptive transition from one school to another.
Teacher Marjaana Arovaara-Heikkinen believes keeping the same pupils in her classroom for several years also makes her job a lot easier.
''I'm like growing up with my children, I see the problems they have when they are small. And now after five years, I still see and know what has happened in their youth, what are the best things they can do. I tell them I'm like their school mother.''
Children in Finland only start main school at age seven. The idea is that before then they learn best when they're playing and by the time they finally get to school they are keen to start learning.
Less is more
| Education in the United States  "If education is expensive, try ignorance" |
Finnish parents obviously claim some credit for the impressive school results. There is a culture of reading with the kids at home and families have regular contact with their children's teachers.
Teaching is a prestigious career in Finland. Teachers are highly valued and teaching standards are high.
The educational system's success in Finland seems to be part cultural. Pupils study in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.
Finland also has low levels of immigration. So when pupils start school the majority have Finnish as their native language, eliminating an obstacle that other societies often face.
The system's success is built on the idea of less can be more. There is an emphasis on relaxed schools, free from political prescriptions. This combination, they believe, means that no child is left behind.
This is how BBC portrayed Korean education system
2011년 3월 2일 수요일
Pink Plastic Flamingo
In her essay “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History”, Jennifer Price carefully examines the beginning and influence of “plastic pink flamingo phenomenon.” Furthermore, she also delineates the bright nature of real flamingos. However, Price’s main purpose is not to introduce the readers of either real or artificial flamingos. In fact, Jennifer Price tries to reveals her view of United States culture by talking about these plastic flamingos. In doing so, Price incorporates certain rhetorical devices, such as strong diction, anecdotes, and listing to reinforce her arguments about the United States culture.
Jennifer Price’s use of strong diction clearly reveals how the “plastic pink flamingo phenomenon” reflects popular cultures of America in the 1950s. She uses the word “boldness” very frequently to describe this pink flamingo’s “splash” into the market. She also argues that the flamingo stands out “strikingly” in a desert. Her use of such emphatic words let readers imagine strong, or rather bold nature of American culture in the 1950s; these words give the readers a chance to feel how suddenly the pink plastic flamingo appeared in American culture and how impressive its effects were. Thus, such use of strong diction helped emphasizing Price’s opinion that this new wave of American culture in the 1950s was rather abrupt and forceful.
Furthermore, Price incorporates an anecdote in her essay to fortify her point. In the second paragraph, she narrates a story of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and how he could successfully conjure the riches with flamingo hotels. This story tells us that flamingos in the middle of the desert were very conspicuous, and that this “conspicuousness” attracted the riches to come to this hotel. By accommodating this anecdote, Price implicitly claims that American culture was obsessed at things that really stood out, and that it even liked things that were so striking as to be considered absurd in some ways. With an anecdote, Jennifer Price points out the fact that Americans by then wished to show off and distinguish themselves from all others.
In addition to italicizing the word “pink” in the third paragraph, Jennifer Price also uses listing to underline how American culture was obsessed with celebrating its new affluence. In the last sentence of the third paragraph, Price relates “Washing machines, cars, and kitchen counters proliferated in passion pink, sunset pink, and Bermuda pink.” Her listing of many different kinds of “pink” color successfully emphasizes her argument that Americans blindly sought after flashy colors – especially pink colors - to declare others that they have risen up from the Great Depression, and that they were now ready to take this new era with ardor.
1950s was definitely a time of change for many Americans. These people had overcome a great hardship, and were ready for a new start. Jennifer Price relates in her essay that American culture was very strong and powerful at the time, and that it really wished to stand out and show off its wealth. Price’s incorporation of rhetorical devices – including powerful diction, an anecdote, and listings – certainly does a job in delivering her opinions to the readers in a much clearer way.
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